You wouldn’t believe it, the singer remarks. At that moment preparing for her new album launch in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was found to have breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, real name J. Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an transparent story, addressing every moment of pain she’d faced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicide) with characteristic openness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while still secretly coping with the disease. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and big frames. Imagine motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the picture. “They used to call me that!” She grins. She is quick, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. During performances I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
She was planning an performance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. They lead you. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but then I just marched with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened four months ago and my affected breast now appears as a odd shape.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
She is familiar with health problems. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with physical challenges. They have often coincided with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or blow, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already beginning featuring in the London theater in the production (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and teenage Jess has become part of the trio Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
